Thursday, April 1, 2010

Bad Dreams, Bad Dreams go away...

One of the interesting things about having kids is seeing parts of you in them. Pookie has brown eyes and a loyal spirit. Bear is slightly more introverted and shy. The one thing that both girls have been cursed with inherited from me is the fact that we have vivid dreams in sleep.

And by vivid dreams, I mean nightmares. Bad ones. I have had dreams so intense that I've woken up feeling like I just ran a marathon. Or convinced that my family is dead. Or so scared I actually cannot fall back asleep.

The girls go through phases of nightmares. Pookie has had night terrors a few times, but Bear is more likely to have at least one nightmare a night. For a while, we had a girl appear at our bed every night to sleep with us. That gets old pretty darn quick.

So in desperation, I took a trick I saw on a Grey's anatomy episode and tried it out on the girls. And now I must do it every night before bed...3 times or it doesn't work.

And it worked! Or at least slowed down the nightly procession to my bedside. Until last night when Bear was so upset that I was coming to work this morning. She cried herself sick and then asked me to say "Bad dreams". I did that and for good measure, prayed with her. (covering all the bases)

Bear had a nightmare almost every hour! Finally she came into our bed at midnight and every hour, when I could hear her breathing change, her body tense up and crying in her sleep, I would hold her, kiss her and let her know I was there. She would never wake up, but would eventually relax and go into deeper sleep.

Guess how much sleep I got? Yeah.

Here is the clip from Grey's. Unfortunately I couldn't find the clip when the kid was alive and the mom was doing it....so be warned, it is a tiny bit emotional!


1 comment:

kelly ens said...

aw, nightmares are tough! Taeya has had a few, but nothing compared to what your girls face, it sounds like. that is an emotional clip from grey's - wow! When i first saw your post about bad dreams, i thought it was going to be the clip about christina getting choked by...can't remember his name, but you know, right?